The present invention relates to a serving ladle for separating fat from a fatty liquid, comprising a bowl having an insert which divides the space in the bowl into a loading chamber and a through-flow chamber, said latter chamber communicating at one end with said loading chamber through a narrow slot, and at the other end having an outlet in or near the upper face of the bowl, said insert consisting of two walls of which the one wall is located in or near to the entry face of the bowl and thus partly covers said face and the second wall has a free edge reaching to the bottom of the bowl and defining together with the adjacent bottom of the bowl said slot.
Spoons or ladles of this type are used for serving out gravy, broth, soup, fatty milk or similar foodstuffs to separate the fatty component from the remainder of the liquid. This is important for consumers who need a fat-deficient or lean diet. On the other hand the same spoon can be used for normally serving out the liquid in question to other comsumers not bound by a diet. When serving, the spoon or ladle is immersed in, for instance, a gravy boat or soup tureen and the loading chamber is filled with liquid. Fatty substances float on the rest of the liquid which then flows through the slot into the through-flow chamber towards the outlet.
In the known construction the insert is formed in such a way, that the second wall of the insert is disposed in the middle plane of the bowl as a kind of partition, having the edge, which is turned away from the bottom of the bowl, connected to the wall located in the upper face of the bowl. The second wall is further provided with a recess serving as collecting chamber for fat. Its free edge reaching to the bottom of the bowl defines in copperation with said bottom the slot. In this way the volume of the bowl of the spoon or ladle is divided into two nearly equal chambers, so that only half of the bowl can be employed usefully as a loading chamber during each helping action.
A much more serious objection to the known spoon is that the pouring out of the fat-free or fat-deficient liquid must be stopped in time, since otherwise in the last stage inevitably the fatty layer sinks through the slot into the through-flow chamber, which entails the risk of said fatty layer joining through the outlet the lean gravy, soup, etc. already in the dish.